First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 6.1

Fitzwilliam Darcy couldn't sleep. He had never been one to toss and turn, so he found himself lying very still in bed, flat on his back, with his hands folded over his stomach, staring up at the ceiling. He had been in the position so long, eyes open, that he could almost make out texture through the gloom.

He could feel the sheets against his skin, slightly scratchy, and warm where it touched his torso and arms. There was a slight breeze blowing through the window, open just a crack. He could hear Bingley shifting in his sleep on the other side of the room. He muttered something once, a short phrase, before the bed creaked as he rolled over. Bingley had always mumbled a little in his sleep...

Darcy was a little afraid to close his eyes. When he did, his thoughts wandered. And it was nearly impossible to keep them in check when he tried to let himself drift off into sleep. Images came, unbid and unwelcome, to his mind.

When she pulled her hair up, loose strands always escaped just at the top of her neck, and they curled delicately against her skin. The way her glasses framed her dark, lively eyes. The way the fire danced when it was reflected in her gaze. When she appeared before dinner, he wanted to go to her and pluck the sticks from her hair, to touch the scratch on her cheek.

With a stifled groan, he finally rolled over, crossing his arms over his chest as he faced the wall and thought about Caroline instead. He should have realized sooner that she was playing some game with the bedrooms, but it was difficult when Bingley was already in on it. Had she really been planning to get him in the same bedroom as her for five days? Well, it wouldn't have made much difference, as he had already made up his mind firmly on the matter.

It had been a mistake, a grievous one, to kiss her. While he had said very little in general about the incident, though never outright admitting it was actually a mistake, he had hoped that several months of silence on it would solve the problem. But now that they were living in the same house, she seemed more determined than ever. She followed him around, cooing in his ear, and backing him up on every opinion, even if it clashed with her own.

This is all your stupid fault anyway, he reminded himself as he pulled one of the pillows from behind his head and pressed it, cool side down, to his face. It blocked out any remaining light or sounds, leaving him in a comfortable vacuum.

Caroline had always had a bit of a crush on him, her older brother's tall, originally gangly, now grown into his height, dark haired friend from school, who wrote poetry and rode horses and lived in a great old family estate. Somehow, Darcy's own shyness had not been a deferent against her interest—she had taken it upon herself to be his champion, to speak for him when he would not or could not himself. With that amount of hero worship on and off for years, it was not necessarily a surprise that he had caved to it, just a little. At a wedding the previous October, they had danced several dances and at the end of the last, he let her kiss him. She was several glasses of wine deeper than he was and had been leaning towards his mouth for almost an hour, batting her lashes and pouting at him. But he was the sober one; he should have stopped her.

When she asked him about it later, he did his best to let her down gently, telling her he was uninterested in dating her. That it would be uncomfortable, at least for him, to date his best friend's little sister. In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten himself. But telling her, genuinely, that the kiss had been "a mistake?" No, he couldn't do that.

Brooding on the issue, he finally fell into a restless sleep, dreaming about Elizabeth wearing Caroline's gray dress from the wedding as she danced with someone else and refused to make eye contact with him.

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He woke early, Bingley still dead to the world, and dressed quickly before making his bed. When he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and hair, he found himself staring at his face in the mirror. If one stares into a mirror long enough, their face distorts slightly, eventually becoming unrecognizable. As a child, he often found himself sitting and staring until the entire concept of identity became foreign.